Being primarily a middle grade focused reader and blogger I’ve noticed young adult gets a lot more attention than middle grade. There are several young adult book festivals, including the famous Y’all Fest which I thought I wanted to attend until I realized I really hadn’t read any of the authors.
I bet off the top of your head you can name numerous YA book blogs or bookstagrammers, but what about MG? Maybe it is just me, but I can’t name nearly as many.
Not to say that there aren’t some standout people featuring middle-grade content. Below I’ll highlight some of my favorite bookstagrammers. I spoke to these stand out bookstagrammers about middle grade vs. young adult books.
MG at Heart
A lovely group of authors and also part of the people behind MG Book Village.MG at Heart is the book club and discussion focused arm of their efforts. They have been working since 2017 to provide resources and reviews for MG readers.
The MG at Heart book club has offered a book each month including announcements, check-ins, quizzes, writer’s toolbox posts, and reviews, and twitter discussions. They are currently discussing My Fate According to the Butterfly by Gail D. Villanueva
Find them at:
Middle-Grade Book Village: MG at Heart
readinginthemiddlegrades
Another great resource that agreed to be included in this feature was teacher, reader, and reviewer, Stacey DeCotis. She focuses on reviewing and reading middle-grade books and her IG is a great resource for new books.
Find her at:
Instagram: readinginthemiddlegrades
Middle-Grade Carousel
This lovely group started up because they noticed the lack of MG resources available. Their goals are reading, reviewing, and recommending middle-grade stories. They also book bingos and challenges.
Find them at:
Why?
While the reasons why middle-grade books are less popular than young adult are multi-faceted, while I was researching this blog post some of the reasons I discussed with @mgatheart included the role of gatekeepers in middle-grade literature, and about how authors need to market to authority figures (teachers, parents, etc) in order to get into their intended target audience’s hands. Whereas with a YA title most of its audience can purchase or check it out from the library directly
We also discussed the thought that less money is spent on MG than YA, even though MG had a longer shelf life (or tail). So publishers were more reluctant to spend money on advertising an MG title until they found out the title had some staying power. So the initial popularity of MG titles was more in the hands of teachers and librarians, which doesn’t always intersect with the blogging world.
I want to thank the mgatheart team again for taking the time to talk to me! <3 You all rock!
And thank you to everyone who took the time to talk with me! I appreciate everything. So, did I miss any resources? What do you think of the difference in popularity? Do you disagree? Tell me why in the comments! 🙂